A Wing and a Prayer

Chapter 1-1

Chapter One

Naomi Klein, my next-door neighbor, sailed in through the back door of my kitchen and announced dramatically, “Have you seen our new neighbor?”

Since I was in the middle of making a fresh batch of the homemade miniature dog biscuits I whipped up on a regular basis for Frida, my two-year-old rescue chihuahua — and any other rescues who might be passing through at the time — I barely looked up from the bite-size bits of dough I was laying out on a cookie sheet. “Well, since I haven’t gone outside in the past hour, I guess I’ll have to say no.”

“Eminently bangable,” was Naomi’s evaluation as she headed over to the fridge and got out the pitcher of sun tea I always kept in there…which, of course, was why she knew to get herself some. Brown eyes sparkling, she added, “Super cute. The universe has dropped a live one in your lap, Jillian.”

“No one’s in my lap,” I said, somewhat wearily. I loved Naomi and was very glad to have her as a next-door neighbor, but I really wished she would stop trying to get me to date. Yes, almost a year had passed since my divorce was final, and yet I knew I just wasn’t ready to get back out there. Honestly, I didn’t know if I ever would be, and that was fine by me. Little Angels Chihuahua Rescue — my nonprofit organization that focused on fostering and finding homes for abandoned chihuahuas and chi mixes — took up pretty much all of my time. I recalled how demanding Tom, my ex, had been and guessed that most men probably wouldn’t be too different, once they got comfortable enough to show me their true selves. “Anyway,” I went on, since Naomi was eyeing me, clearly expecting me to say something else, “if he’s so hot, you can have him.”

“Can’t,” she said. “I’m only five days into my ninety-day man cleanse. What would I say to my viewers if I gave in to temptation less than a week into my detox?”

Naomi was a highly successful YouTube lifestyle guru and personality. She’d converted one of the rooms in the big Victorian house next to mine into a studio and interview space, and I was honestly kind of shocked at the celebrities she was able to lure in there for one-on-one talks. And honestly, although I still couldn’t say I precisely understood how a YouTube celebrity could earn a salary in the low seven figures, obviously Naomi knew what she was doing.

So, while her comment about her “viewers” might have seemed self-centered, I knew it was only the truth. They looked up to her, absorbed her advice without question — or at least, not too much questioning — and if she was in the middle of a “man cleanse,” then the last thing she should be doing was chasing after our new neighbor. I’d known someone would be moving in soon, just because the “for sale” sign on the house across the street had come down only a week earlier. However, since the two houses faced each other, I’d been able to catch glimpses of prospective buyers during the two months it had been for sale, and I knew I’d never seen anyone I would have referred to as “eminently bangable.”

“Come on,” she urged me. “He was out in the yard, inspecting the flowerbeds. In a suit, no less. And a bow tie. Who the hell wears a bow tie these days?”

“And yet he’s still bangable?” I asked, my mouth curling into a grin despite myself.

“Yes, which should tell you something about his looks. Let’s go take a peek through the living room curtains — those dog biscuits can wait.”

Since I’d forgotten to turn on the oven at the appropriate time and it was still preheating, I supposed that technically, Naomi was right. Still, it felt kind of silly to be peering past my living room drapes like a couple of gossips out of a 1950s sitcom or something. But since I could tell from my friend’s expression that she was going to keep bugging me until I capitulated, I shrugged, went and ran my hands under the kitchen tap to get them clean, and then headed out to the living room.

Back when my house was constructed in the late 1890s, the living room had probably been called the parlor. Like all the other houses on Carroll Avenue — a famous street in L.A.’s fabled Angelino Heights — it had been built more than a hundred years earlier, a large Queen Anne–style Victorian with a five-color paint scheme, shades of blue accented with dark brick red and white. Not the kind of place that someone who managed a small, independent dog rescue operation should have been able to afford, but undisputed ownership of the house was the price my ex-husband had paid for this philandering. Cheating was no good, but when you were a high-priced lawyer having an affair with one of your clients, well, a million-dollar-plus house was a small price to pay to avoid getting disbarred.

I followed Naomi to the front window, which looked out on Carroll Avenue. Even in early February, the yards were all green, although most people’s roses had been recently cut back and therefore weren’t very showy. Even so, everything looked picture perfect, like something right out of a movie set — which made sense, since a lot of TV shows and movies had been filmed there. In fact, the house from the original Charmed television show was just down the road.

But there he was, standing in front of one of the flowerbeds in the house opposite mine, something of a similar vintage and style, only painted in shades of gray with dark green accents. My new neighbor had his hands shoved in his pants pockets and appeared to be scowling down at the close-pruned roses in the brick-encircled bed in front of him.

“A plaid suit?” I said, casting a skeptical glance at Naomi, who was hovering right behind me. “He’s got to be gay.”

“I don’t think so,” she replied, brown eyes wide with interest, full mouth under its coating of pinkish nude lip gloss quirking slightly. “My gay-dar is usually infallible. I don’t get that vibe from him at all.”

About all I could do was raise an eyebrow. True, Naomi tended to have great instincts when it came to that sort of thing, but no one could bat a thousand all the time. And honestly, I couldn’t imagine a straight guy wearing that suit — or the dark red bow tie that circled his neck.

However, I had to admit to myself that the new neighbor was damn good-looking. Tall, and with an athletic build that filled out the plaid suit he wore and kept it from appearing utterly ridiculous. Thick brown hair and regular features just this side of man-pretty. From that distance, I couldn’t tell what color his eyes were. Not that it really mattered. I didn’t have any plans to get close enough to find out for myself.

“Okay, he’s cute,” I allowed, and then stepped away from the window. “It’s weird, though — I didn’t see a moving truck.”

She allowed herself one last glance at the new neighbor and turned toward me. “Oh, they came while you were out picking up that dog from Mount Washington.”

“That dog” was Rufus, my latest rescue. I could already tell he was going to be a handful — he was feisty and wanted to act as though he ruled the roost, even though my own dog Frida had let him know, with a couple of not-so-uncertain growls, that this was her house and while she might tolerate visitors, no way was a new dog going to come in here and behave as though he was the one in charge. Anyway, Mount Washington was only about twenty minutes from my place, and the entire trip had taken me less than an hour, even factoring in coming and going and chatting for a bit with Myra Lopez, the gal who had found Rufus wandering her street and who’d called me to come get him.

“They unloaded an entire houseful of furniture in less than an hour?” I asked, knowing how skeptical I sounded.

“Yep,” Naomi replied. “It was actually kind of amazing. A big commercial moving truck pulled up, followed by a van. There was a crew of six guys in the van, and they came out and met up with the two guys in the truck, and the whole gang of them moved everything from the truck to the house in record time. Nice stuff, too — expensive antiques, from what I could tell.”

Which was exactly the kind of furniture you’d want for a home like one of ours. Inwardly, I found myself already approving of this new neighbor, simply because I thought if you were going to live in a vintage house, then you should have vintage furniture to go along with it. Not that I had anything against more modern styles, but there were plenty of modern homes in L.A. I didn’t see the point in filling a Victorian house with mid-century furniture, any more than I’d want someone decorating a brand-new glass and steel house with antiques.

Obviously, if he could afford a house on this street and the kind of furniture Naomi was describing — not to mention a team of eight people to unload everything and put it away — then our new neighbor must have been doing okay for himself. I didn’t recognize him, so I didn’t think he was an actor, although I supposed he could have been; I didn’t have enough time to watch most of the shows currently on the air and wasn’t all that familiar with who was starring in what. Or maybe he was a designer of some kind…the suit was the sort of eccentricity that might be forgiven in design circles.

Not that it really mattered. The guy had moved in across the street from me, and so I guessed we’d wave and say hi from time to time, but I doubted our interactions would extend much beyond those surface pleasantries.

“And he only looks like he’s a year or two older than you,” Naomi went on. “Early thirties at the most. So, I think it’s just about perfect.”

“I have no plans to date anyone, least of all our new neighbor,” I told her. “Just think how messy it would be if we did end up going out and then broke up later. Awkward.”

“You need to stop jumping to the worst conclusions, Jillian,” she said. Now she sounded brisk, as though she was talking to her YouTube audience and not someone in the room with her. “Maybe it would all turn out great.”

“I kind of doubt it.”

That exchange was all we had time for, because some yaps and growls coming from the family room told me that Rufus had woken up from his nap and decided to encroach on Frida’s territory once again. Murmuring an apology to Naomi, I hurried over to the source of the commotion and picked up Rufus. He squirmed in my arms but obviously knew better than to try to nip at me. Down on the floor, Frida shot me a narrow glance, as if to tell me that while she understood that I had to take in these lost souls from time to time, she wished I’d do better at keeping them away when it was time for her all-important afternoon beauty sleep.

It was too early to take the dogs for a walk — I tried to head out around four every day unless I had an appointment or the weather was too hot — but the backyard had been thoroughly chihuahua-proofed, and so I knew it would be safe to send Rufus out there to cool his heels until it was time for that afternoon’s constitutional. I took him over to the back door and let him out, and although he shot me a reproachful glance, he trotted down the steps cheerfully enough and off toward one of the lilies of the Nile that bordered the lawn so he could lift his leg and pee.

Although I could tell from the look on Naomi’s face that she wanted to continue our conversation about the new neighbor, she must have glimpsed something in my expression that told her to back off, because she said breezily, “Well, I need to get back. I’ve got Elizabeth Gilbert dropping in tomorrow and need to get the studio squared away.”

“Oh, that’s all?” I responded. “I’m surprised you don’t have Ryan Gosling or Emma Stone lined up.”

“Next week,” she twinkled, and let herself out. There was actually a gate that connected our two properties, and so she tended to come and go through the kitchen and the backyard, rather than walking in formally from the front of the house.